MUST SEE: ABC News Goes Underwater For Special Report On Gulf Oil Spill (VIDEO)

[mod mom]

ABC News outfitted a diving team with special hazmat suits and sent them to the Gulf to see the damage the oil leak and subsequent cleanup are causing underwater. They found that the leaking oil is combining with the cleanup chemicals to form a toxic soup.

From ABC News:

For the first time since the BP Deepwater Horizon tragedy over a month ago, "Good Morning America" Weather Anchor Sam Champion, along with Philippe Cousteau and a team of specially-trained divers, reported from under the water in the Gulf of Mexico to see first-hand what is happening beneath the surface. Wearing special hazmat dive suits, the team is the first to dive in - and document - the oil-laden waters off of the Louisiana coastline.
WATCH:



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/25/abc-news-goes-underwater_n_588555.html

HEART BREAKING!

[Urban Prairie]

1. Absolutely horrifying!!

I can just picture those dispersed globs of crude being sucked up by a hurricane, and then dispersed inland..Yikes!!

:grr: :scared:

[sweettater]

2. You've got that right!

It's hard to wrap one's mind around this catastrophe. :cry:

[blondeatlast]

3. The dispersant made it worse, obviously. Sickening.

Let's ratchet up a nice class-action suit against BP. Cruise lines, fisherman, tourism. and on and on...

Let's see them face THATR down.

[HereSince1628]

4. Would that get around the liability cap?

Just wondering.

[mod mom]

7. Read this Current report of Russian Scientists dire warning of Corexit usage:

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
A dire report prepared for President Medvedev by Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources is warning today that the British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico is about to become the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent with “total destruction”.

Russian scientists are basing their apocalyptic destruction assessment due to BP’s use of millions of gallons of the chemical dispersal agent known as Corexit 9500 which is being pumped directly into the leak of this wellhead over a mile under the Gulf of Mexico waters and designed, this report says, to keep hidden from the American public the full, and tragic, extent of this leak that is now estimated to be over 2.9 million gallons a day.

The dispersal agent Corexit 9500 is a solvent originally developed by Exxon and now manufactured by the Nalco Holding Company of Naperville, Illinois that is four times more toxic than oil (oil is toxic at 11 ppm (parts per million), Corexit 9500 at only 2.61ppm). In a report written by Anita George-Ares and James R. Clark for Exxon Biomedical Sciences, Inc. titled “Acute Aquatic Toxicity of Three Corexit Products: An Overview” Corexit 9500 was found to be one of the most toxic dispersal agents ever developed. Even worse, according to this report, with higher water temperatures, like those now occurring in the Gulf of Mexico, its toxicity grows.

-snip
A greater danger involving Corexit 9500, and as outlined by Russian scientists in this report, is that with its 2.61ppm toxicity level, and when combined with the heating Gulf of Mexico waters, its molecules will be able to “phase transition” from their present liquid to a gaseous state allowing them to be absorbed into clouds and allowing their release as “toxic rain” upon all of Eastern North America.

Even worse, should a Katrina like tropical hurricane form in the Gulf of Mexico while tens of millions of gallons of Corexit 9500 are sitting on, or near, its surface the resulting “toxic rain” falling upon the North American continent could “theoretically” destroy all microbial life to any depth it reaches resulting in an “unimaginable environmental catastrophe” destroying all life forms from the “bottom of the evolutionary chart to the top”.

-snip

http://current.com/news/92450125_toxic-oil-spill-rains-warned-could-destroy-north-america.htm

[Greyskye]

5. Eco nightmare.

The Gulf will never fully recover. :(

[BR_Parkway]

6. I don't get why they use the dispersment - seems it would have been

easier to clean if it was all together

[mod mom]

9. The oil corporations are tied in to the production of this.

-snip

So far, BP has told federal agencies that it has applied more than 400,000 gallons of a dispersant sold under the trade name Corexit and manufactured by Nalco Co., whose current leadership includes executives from BP and Exxon. And another 805,000 gallons of Corexit are on order, the company said, with the possibility that hundreds of thousands of more gallons may be needed if the well continues spewing oil for weeks or months.

But according to EPA data, Corexit ranks far above dispersants made by competitors in toxicity and far below them in effectiveness in handling southern Louisiana crude.

Of 18 dispersants whose use EPA has approved, 12 were found to be more effective on southern Louisiana crude than Corexit, EPA data show. Two of the 12 were found to be 100 percent effective on Gulf of Mexico crude, while the two Corexit products rated 56 percent and 63 percent effective, respectively. The toxicity of the 12 was shown to be either comparable to the Corexit line or, in some cases, 10 or 20 times less, according to EPA.

-snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/business/energy-environment/13greenwire-less-toxic-dispersants-lose-out-in-bp-oil-spil-81183.html

[Feron]

10. It serves a dual purpose....

It hides the oil from the surface and allows BP to lowball the amount spilled. That will hopefully minimize any bad PR.

And from what I understand, legal judgments likely will be based on the amount spilled.

[golddigger]

8. Fuckin goddamnit.

:mad:

[Individualist]

11. K&R